Why is the price of a gallon of gasoline [price per gallon]& 9/10 of a cent?
It's something I've always wondered about.
9/10 of a cent...
- Thread starter wavinwayne
- Start date
- Status
Me too! Funny, I was just thinking about posting this a couple of days ago.
Just like a shirt will be marked $15.99 instead of $16. They want you to focus on the smaller number 15 insead of 16. When gasoline was 10 to 20 cents a gallon the 0.9 was a significant amount and so advertizing at 15.9 made more marketing sense, but now at $2.25 it is a pesky anachronism. Wish we could get rid of it along with that absurd changing of the clocks every 6 months.
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2002
- Messages
- 39,800
Wish we could get rid of it along with that absurd changing of the clocks every 6 months.
...but ..but how would I know when to change my smoke detector batteries ![[Confused]](images/icons/confused.gif)
It's almost as ridiculous as pennies!
quote:Yep......9/10 as ridiculous!!!
Originally posted by rpn453: It's almost as ridiculous as pennies!
![[Big Grin]](images/icons/grin.gif){kind=icon}
Kestas
Staff member
Why stop with pennies? I think nickels should go the way of the dinosaur also.
There was an interesting study way back when. When given the choice of a product at round numbers ($120, $330) or the familiar retail prices ($199.99, $329.99), people perceived the products with round numbers to be higher quality.
I seem to recall back in the non-existent "shortage" of '79 that gas stations were actually using fractions other than 9/10- haven't seen it since though...
I have my own business and sell [roducts off the shelve in a little show room. by mistake some of a product I sell was marked $10.00 instead of $9.99 and people would not buy the product marked a penny higher even though bit was the same product
I have my own business and sell [products off the shelve in a little show room. by mistake some of a product I sell was marked $10.00 instead of $9.99 and people would not buy the product marked a penny higher even though it was the same product.They would take the item marked at $10.00 and set it aside and grab the identicle product at $9.99.I left the prices that way for a few days just to conduct my own little survey, Its like people traveling 10 miles out of thier way to buy gas 3 cents a gallon cheaper.
The .09 pricing on gas really irritates me. I wish someone with more time would start a "movement" to give preference to stations that use even dime pricing. I would sign on in a minute. Just let the station owners know that everything else being equal we would buy gas from stations with even pricing. Some people are just stupid. The Shell credit card saves 5% but many people are too lazy or whatever to get one. Here in Illinois they doubled the toll on the tollroads if you do not use the "IPass" but I know people who pay double because they are "not gonna let the State know where I go and when". Oh well!
it's not .09, it's .9. it's nine-tenths of a penny.
in marketing you call it "psycholoigical pricing".
as has been said, $19.99 will move a lot more product than $20.00. It works, there's decades of data to prove it and you won't ever see it go away.
in the 70s shortage the price controls were written to allow only a certain % increase, so the results often came out to be 89.2 c/g or whatever.
You may recall that price controls did not make more gasoline appear.....but that's OT...
quote:It sure as heck works that way with my wife
Originally posted by kenw: in marketing you call it "psycholoigical pricing". as has been said, $19.99 will move a lot more product than $20.00. It works, there's decades of data to prove it and you won't ever see it go away.
![[Roll Eyes]](images/icons/rolleyes.gif){kind=icon}
.
Whimseyquote:That does make sense.
Originally posted by kenw:quote:now this actually makes sense.
Originally posted by merlin64: It should be illegal to charge in a demonination of money that does not exist. If they charge in tenths then I want my change in tenths....
What everybody needs to do is buy less than a pennies worth of gas and a see what they say when you give them a penny and wait for your change.
Good luck metering-out a pennies worth of gas out of a gas station pump. Even a gentle, small squeeze of the handle is guaranteed to deliver more than a pennies worth of gas.
quote:Very true, but really that isn't the point. Say gas is $2.50 and 9/10 cent per gallon, for one gallon you will actually pay $2.51, more than the advertised price. Hmmm, wonder if anyone has sued for false advertising and deceptive sales practices due to the 9/10 cent pricing where the 1/10 cent per gallon cannont be recoved by the consumer...
Originally posted by AndyH: Good luck metering-out a pennies worth of gas out of a gas station pump. Even a gentle, small squeeze of the handle is guaranteed to deliver more than a pennies worth of gas.
- Status
